Reedfor musical instruments



Feb. 2, 1943. A Q RADTKg A 2,309,714

BEEP FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS Filed April 29, 1940 Patented Feb. 2, 1943REED FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS Adelbert C. Radtkc, Oak Park, and Dan T.Fernandez, Chicago, 111., assignors to Sears, Roebuck and Company,Chicago, 111., a corporation of New York Application April 29, 1940,Serial No. 332,410

3 Claims.

Our invention relates to musical instruments and has to do moreparticularly with an improved reed which is applicable to a largevariety of wind instruments, such as accordions, harmonicas, pipeorgans, etc., etc.

In the past, reeds of the type referred to have been usually made ofsteel or brass, which, up to now, has been considered the mostsatisfactory material. However, steel is subject to a number ofobjections in this connection. Thus, it is subject to corrosion and, ofcourse, after it has corroded even slightly, the element will have lostits tonal properties. Furthermore, the best steels and brasses aresubject to fatigue and this, again, destroys the tonal value of thereed.

An object of our invention is to provide a reed of material that will besubstantially stable, 1. e., incorrodible and also which will besubstantially fatigueless within its elastic limits, said limits beingsufliciently great for all of the purposes required.

Another object of our invention is to provide an improved reed of suchdesign that the strains produced by vibration will be distributed over alarger area than in reeds of previous designs, so that our improvedreeds will be of longer life.

Various other objects and advantages will become apparent as thedescription proceeds.

Referring to the drawing forming a part of this application andillustrating a preferred embodiment of our invention:

Fig. l is a perspective view illustrating our invention.

Fig. 2 is a sectional view on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken as indicated by the line 3-3 in Fig. 1;and

Fig. 4 is a top plan view of a reed embodying our invention.

Our improved reed comprises a base portion l having formed integrallytherewith a leaf portion I2. The base portion according to standardpractice, may be secured to a block l5 having an air passage l6 therein(reference is made here particularly to accordion construction, althoughthe invention is equally applicable to other reed instruments). A rivetl8 extending through an aperture in the base Ill serves to secure thereed to the block l5.

The leaf portion [2 is connected to the base [0 by means of a taperedconnecting portion 20, said tapered portion preferably being curved asshown in Fig. 1. By this means, the leaf portion will vibrate along ashifting transverse axis rather than along a sharply defined axis, as inordinary reeds where the leaf portion makes a sharp angle with the base.Hence, reeds according to our construction will not be subject tofailure, as so frequently happens in reeds of standard design due torepeated vibration about a definitely positioned axis.

We preferably form our improved reed from a beryllium-copper alloy. Wedo not claim to be the originators of the alloy, but employ aberyllium-copper sheet material which has been especially treated toimpart a high degree of hardness and resilience. This alloy consists ofapproximately 9697% copper, and approximately 2% beryllium. A relativelysmall percentage of nickel may be included, if desired. We do notconsider ourselves limited to this specific composition, however, sincethese proportions may vary a few per cent. either up or down. This alloyis cold rolled into sheets, imparting a preliminary hardness thereto,and is then hardened at a relatively low temperature, say about C. forapproximately one hour and then allowed to air cool. This treatment isdesigned to produce maximum hardness.

Reeds formed of the material described above have many improvedproperties as compared with the previously known reeds. Thus, thematerial is substantially fatigueless within its elastic limits. Forthis reason, the tone of the reed will remain absolutely true at alltimes regardless of how long the instrument may be used. By reason ofits extreme hardness and freedom from fatigue, the reed will lastpractically forever and will not be subject to replacement, contrary tothe ordinary reed.

Our improved reed furthermore is not subject to corrosion, even in moistatmosphere, as is the case with steel.

We have found that reeds embodying our invention also have improvedtonal properties as compared with other reeds. Thus, our improved reedsproduce a louder tone than a reed of the same shape and size formed ofother materials and, furthermore, the tone produced from our improvedreed has a finer quality than other reeds. This quality is of anindescribable silvery nature, possibly due to the presence of addedovertones.

According to our invention, reeds of the same pitch may be stamped outof a sheet of material such as described above, and the stamping diesmay be so formed as to produce a reed having a leaf portion of reducedthickness, as shown at 22, so that if, in order to obtain the truepitch, it is necessary to remove some of the material, a

relatively slight amount of grinding or filing will be required. On theother hand, if material must be added, this can be readily done. Or, thesheet metal may be rolled to the desired thickness and strips stampedout and filed or ground, or added to, as the case may be. The reeds canbe formed from the annealed stock and then heat treated to the properhardness. This is considered a substantial improvement over the presentmethod whereby the reeds are formed with a uniform gage or thickness ofmetal and are then hand worked in order to tune them. The amount ofhand-work, according to the present practice, is so great that the costof an instrument at the present time to a large extent represents thevalue of hand labor involved. It will thus be seen that by greatlyreducing the amount of manual labor according to our invention, the costof an instrument will be very substantially reduced.

Various changes coming within the spirit of our invention may suggestthemselves to those skilled in the art and, hence, we do not wish to belimited to the specific forms shown and described or uses mentioned,except to the extent indicated in the appended claims.

We claim:

1. A reed for musical instruments formed of a hardened alloy composed ofa preponderant proportion of copper and a minor proportion of beryllium.

2. A reed for a musical instrument having a base attaching portion, anintegral vibratory leal portion of reduced width as compared with thebase portion, and an intermediate portion, said reed having side edgeswith a continuous curve between the side edges of the base portion andthose of the leaf portion, so that the width of the reed increasesgradually rather than abruptly between the leaf portion and the baseportion, said reed being formed of an alloy composed of a predominantproportion of copper and a minor proportion of beryllium.

3. A reed for a musical instrument having a base portion and an integralvibratory leaf portion and having a portion connecting the leaf portionwith the base portion, said connecting portion having continuous curvedconcave edges in continuation of the side edges of the leaf portion, sothat the leaf will vibrate about a shifting axis, said reed being formedof a hardened alloy composed of a preponderant proportion of copper anda minor proportin of beryllium.

ADELBERT C. RADTKE. DAN T. FERNANDEZ.

3 V I CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION.

Patent No. 2,509,71h. February 2, 19h} ADELBERT C RADTKE, ET AL.

It is hereby certified that error appears in the printed specificationof the above numbered patent requiring correction as follows; Page 1,second column, line 21, fpr "175 read 275-; and that the said LettersPatent should be read with this correction therein that the same mayconform to the record of the case in the Patent Office Signed and sealedthis 16th day of March, A D. 19145 (Seal) Henry Van Arsda 1e,

Acting Cormissioner of Patents CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION.

Patent No. 2,509,71h. February 2, 1911.5.

ADELBERT C RADTKE, ET AL.

It is hereby certified that error appears in the printed specificationof the above numbered patent requiring correction as follows; Page 1,sec- 0nd column, line 21, for "175 read 275 and that the said LettersPatent should be read with this correction therein that the same mayconform to the record of the case in the Patent Office.

Signed and sealed this 16th day of March, A. D. 1915.

Henry Van Arsdale,

(Seal) Acting Commissioner of Patents

